Where Children Play
by Little Boy of Lothering
Summary: John and Mary Winchester have two little boys who will save the world one day. They just don't know it yet.


They plan out the first pregnancy carefully, so nothing goes wrong. Mary factors in the slight irregularity in her cycle and John tries to help, even if the whole thing makes him nearly as embarrassed as he is excited. He apologizes every time he thinks he does something wrong, which she thinks is sweet. All her life her parents have been giving her orders and neither ever said a thing about it if they were wrong. Dad was so sure that he was _always _right; John isn't like that. Her husband adds in real life and optimism and add that to his hardworking personality and determination to _make himself better _(the War did things to him, same as all the other soldiers, and she's learned how to help him get through the worst of it), and she finds herself living the life she always wanted.

On their third try, the test finally comes in positive. He brings her out to celebrate at that fancy Italian place in Topeka, owned by a New York family who moved here five years ago, and she bakes him a pie the next morning. John couldn't cook if his life depended on it, which she thinks is hilarious because she's not much good outside of dessert and sweets making either. They mark off a calendar, deciding on doctor appointment dates, and search through the Yellow Pages and references from friends for the best person to see. Somewhere along the way they decide to name the baby after her parents—Deanna for a girl, Sam but not Samuel for a boy.

The doctor's name is Abigail Fleecy and she makes Mary slide on the gel herself. John's there next to the table, holding her hand, and Dr. Fleecy moves the whatever-it's-called over her stomach, making her giggle. Though neither Winchester has much idea what's on the screen, the doctor points everything out, squinting through her large, thick glasses. She smiles brightly and says the baby is girl.

So, Deanna it is.

They prepare. Mary is very avidly against pink and John isn't too fond of it either. They decide on light green because yellow (the color she wants) reminds him too much orange and that…well, they still have a lot to work on. It's getting better, of course; he grew up in Illinois and came to Kansas because people aren't taking kindly to vets, especially ones who left early for injures, but he's good at hiding it. He says it's because of her; she says it's because he's strong enough to put himself back together. The few times she's said that out loud, he's smiled shyly and offer to weed the back garden for her so she won't have to get their hands dirty.

Of course, she has problems herself, but she grew up learning how to deal. Besides, that demon promised he'd keep all the creepy crawlies away and though she doesn't trust him, it seems he told the truth. After a while, she stops wanting to cover the doorways with salt if a light flickers. John can fix that, she reminds herself. John can fix a lot of things—himself, her, cars, the house, and eventually their baby.

Skip eight and a half months, and she goes into labor while at work. Marcy, a petite blonde woman three years her senior, gets her to hospital while someone else (she doesn't know who) manages to call John. He meets her at the hospital where she's screaming her head off from the worst pain she's ever felt. Worse than that Wendigo at fourteen, the poltergeist with the hatchet three years later, even that one time a month before that when a powerful witch did a very not-powerful thing and shoved her down a spiral staircase. John's there through it all, letting her grip his hand even though she's about fifty percent sure she's capable of breaking his fingers right now.

Then, the baby girl. Who, it turns out, is he and not a she. Apparently even with those thick glasses, Fleecy was blind.

Both Winchesters are exhausted and excited, but very, very confused. Looking up at her husband, Mary says, "Should we go with Sam, then?"

Crying, bawling, baffling male baby blinks open his weepy eyes. They're so green, so bright, bright green. For a moment, her mind seems to short-circuit, but John apparently manages to remember a detail of the mother she lived with for nineteen years and he'd known for one and disliked him. "No," he answers. "He hasn't got the eyes. How about Dean?"

She smiles, tired and happy and scared and excited all at the same time. Even though she loved her parents, her and her dad had their…differences, to put it lightly. "Dean," she repeats, and some of the crying quiets. Her own cheeks are still stained with tear tracks. "Dean Winchester. What about a middle name?"

"You pick."

Such big green eyes, she thinks, but shaped so much like John's. A name flashes through her head, something quick and half formed and before she even really thinks about, she says, "Michael?" like that's somehow familiar and good. It makes her feel warm.

Dean Michael Winchester is born January 24, 1979 at 1:37 in the afternoon. At 1:38, it begins to snow.

This is their baby, and John and Mary love him very much.

.

A year later, while trying to make Dean pay attention and not keep walking into table legs and couches again, they discuss maybe having another child. They're iffy on the whole thing because she and John only make so much money and one baby on top of all their other necessary payments is expensive enough. Besides, they figure, neither of them have siblings and they turned out well enough. They can teach Dean to share and whatnot on their own. He already seems like a quick learner.

On the day they scrap the idea, she gives her son a very tiny piece of cherry pie for the first time. He smiles and blinks his big green eyes, yellow hair bright in the fading son.

.

Midway through the July of 1982, John's mom dies. Her name was Margret and she'd been sweet and kind and funny. She'd been a proper mother—a proper parent, dealing with a son and step-father with love rather than order and halfhearted defense of decisions—that Mary never had the chance to have. Her funeral is in Illinois and they go, reluctantly leaving their three-year-old with the neighbor. He'd never had a chance to meet her, her cancer making it difficult to travel to them and their jobs and a toddler making it difficult for them to travel to her. Mary's dress is black and itches. Somehow, John manages not to cry until after the funeral is over.

Life comes to a standstill for a short while after that, like everyone in the Winchester house is going through the motions but not really up to full capacity. Even Dean is subdued, not pleading with John to read him a little more of whatever the bedtime story was at the time (it was some picture book about King Arthur with more words than any other picture book she'd ever seen) or crying as long as normally would the one day he stubs him tone on the screen door that leads to the garden.

When the standstill finally breaks two weeks later, their son's in bed and they have sex. She cries at the end, masking that John does the same thing. They both find it ironic that of all their not-quite-careful occasions, this is the one that gets her pregnant. Damn irregular cycle.

The day she finds out, John gets a raise. A Hell of high raise too, enough for them to have a second child with relative ease, and neither bring up the quickly thought about idea of adoption. Dean cheers about having a baby brother when they tell him even though they aren't sure (they made Fleecy keep it as a surprise because last time was anyway) and neither have the heart to explain that to him.

Unfortunately, this is also a harder pregnancy than last time. She spots and comes down with pneumonia and snaps at John more and the morning sickness is awful. It's almost as if her body's telling her to run and never come back. Like it's trying to dispel the baby before it can come out. She tells herself that all this is from the moodiness and her hunter mind reminding her that come next November, her deal is due. Even so, something makes her feel like she shouldn't have this baby, almost like someone told her when she was too young to remember and it's coming back to her now that it's happening.

One night, after an argument with John brought on by another goddamn mood swing and he's downstairs cooling off because it's bad to go to bed angry, she has a dream about a burning woman with dark red hair and an impossibly tall man telling her to make Dean any only child.

When she wakes up, she cries.

John makes it better though. It's obvious he's scared she's still angry but he tentatively brings up the idea of what they should name the baby. All negative thoughts from the night before are gone again and she feels guilty and vicious and profoundly glad her husband can't read minds.

How about Lucy is it's a girl, he says, like you're second favorite song.

She puts her hand on her stomach and smiles. She tells him it's perfect.

.

He's not a girl. They name him Sam, but not Samuel. And he almost dies an hour after he's born premature.

Dr. Foxx explains that he's too small and his lungs underdeveloped. Mary never even gets the chance to hold him before the team of nurses took him away. Later, when he lives past the danger period and he's put into her arm's, they say it's a miracle.

They name him Sam Lucas Winchester. John picks the middle name because it's closest boy's name to Lucy. His eyes change color in different lighting. All her fears and random hatred are gone, left with love and excitement. She always thought it was a myth or even maybe a joke when people say so-and-so didn't cry when he (or she) was born, but not anymore. Sam is silent, blinking and curious.

Back home, Dean says he's gonna protect his baby Sammy forever and she helps him hold him. Sammy. She likes it. Her older son kisses the top his head. Mary has no way of knowing she just witnessed the strongest promise ever made.

Now that the baby is born and she's a little less crazy, she and John stop fighting again. The four of them are a family, everything she's ever wanted. Two children and husband who loves her living in a house in her hometown that smells of pancakes every Sunday morning. It's just them now, no extended family that they know about, both sets of parents dead or, in John's real father's case, simply gone, but they make it work. No monsters, no fighting, no devil's traps to keep demons away. And the Winchester family lives in Lawrence, Kansas doing what they can to get by.

For a while, Mary forgets about the deal.

.

Then it comes, sprung onto her by surprise. The lights are blinking and John's downstairs and she only half remembers the exorcism her father taught her when she was fifteen.

She runs into the nursery anyway.

The Yellow-Eyed Demon's wrist is cut, blood dripping into her baby's mouth and suddenly the pregnancy makes sense.

As she dies, stomach slit and burning on the ceiling, she realizes her son never belonged to her in the first place.

.

Heaven is lovely and beautiful. John comes by twenty-two years later.


End file.
